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What's Sad About Not Eating Is The Experience, Whether At A Family Reunion Or At Midnight By Yourself In A Greasy Spoon Under The L Tracks. The Loss Of Dining, Not The Loss Of Food.

-Roger Ebert

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What's Sad About Not

Roger Ebert

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What's Sad About Not Eating Is The Experience, Whether At A Family Reunion Or At Midnight By Yourself In A Greasy Spoon Under The L Tracks. The Loss Of Dining, Not The Loss Of Food.

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I Begin To Feel Like Most Americans Don't Understand The First Amendment, Don't Understand The Idea Of Freedom Of Speech, And Don't Understand That It's The Responsibility Of The Citizen To Speak Out.

Parents And Schools Should Place Great Emphasis On The Idea That It Is All Right To Be Different. Racism And All The Other 'isms' Grow From Primitive Tribalism, The Instinctive Hostility Against Those Of Another Tribe, Race, Religion, Nationality, Class Or Whatever. You Are A Lucky Child If Your Parents Taught You To Accept Diversity.

One Of The Weapons Marvel Used In Its Climb To Comic-book Dominance Was A Willingness To Invent New Characters At A Dizzying Speed. There Are So Many Marvel Universes, Indeed, That Some Superheroes Do Not Even Exist In One Another's Worlds, Preventing Gridlock.

It Is Comforting To Think That We Can Love So Powerfully That Fate Itself Wheels And Turns At The Command Of Our Souls.

Horror Fans Are A Particular Breed. They Analyze Films With Such Detail And Expertise That I Am Reminded Of The Canadian Literary Critic Northrup Frye, Who Approached Literature With Similar Archetypal Analysis.

[marlon] Brando Was The Only Guy Who Could Step Out Of That Shadow At The End Of That Movie And Be Worth The Wait.

I Think We Have To Get Beyond The Idea That We Have To Categorize People.

Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy.

Sarah Palin Lacked The Preparation Or Temperament To Be One Heartbeat Away From The Presidency, But What She Possessed In Abundance Was The Ability To Inflame Political Passions And Energize The John Mccain Campaign With Star Quality.

The Buried Code Of Many American Films Has Become: If I Kill You, I Have Won And You Have Lost. The Instinctive Ethical Code Of Traditional Hollywood, The Code By Which Characters Like James Stewart, John Wayne And Henry Fonda Lived, Has Been Lost.

The Problem With Being Sure That God Is On Your Side Is That You Can't Change Your Mind, Because God Sure Isn't Going To Change His.

Only Enormously Talented People Could Have Made Death To Smoochy . Those With Lesser Gifts Would Have Lacked The Nerve To Make A Film So Bad, So Miscalculated, So Lacking Any Connection With Any Possible Audience.

No Matter What They're Charging To Get In, It's Worth More To Get Out.

Last Year, I Reviewed A Nine-hour Documentary About The Lives Of Mongolian Yak Herdsmen, And I Would Rather See It Again Than Sit Through The Frighteners.

But Considering That I Walked In Expecting No Complexity At All, Let Alone The Visual Wonderments, "snow White And The Huntsman" Is A Considerable Experience.

The Genius Is Not In How Much Stanley Kubrick Does In “2001: A Space Odyssey,'' But In How Little. This Is The Work Of An Artist So Sublimely Confident That He Doesn't Include A Single Shot Simply To Keep Our Attention. He Reduces Each Scene To Its Essence, And Leaves It On Screen Long Enough For Us To Contemplate It, To Inhabit It In Our Imaginations. Alone Among Science-fiction Movies, “2001'' Is Not Concerned With Thrilling Us, But With Inspiring Our Awe.

The Right Really Dominates Radio, And It's Amazing How Much Energy The Right Spends Telling Us That The Press Is Slanted To The Left When It Really Isn't. They Want To Shut Other People Up. They Really Don't Understand The First Amendment.

Movies That Encourage Empathy Are More Effective Than Those That Objectify Problems.

Clint, My Hero, Is Coming Across As Sad And Pathetic. He Didn't Need To Do This To Himself. It's Unworthy Of Him.

The Academy Is Paranoid About Its Image.

I Am Proudly A Liberal. I Am Also Patriotic, Reasonable, Pro-american, And Stand For Family Values.

I Urgently Advise Hospitals: Do Not Make The Dvd Available To Your Patients; There May Be An Outbreak Of Bedpans Thrown At Tv Screens.

Sometimes, It's All About The Casting.

Of All The Purposes Of Education, I Think The Most Useful Is This: It Prepares You To Keep Yourself Entertained. It Gives You A Better Chance Of An Interesting Job.

We Can't Help Identifying With The Protagonist. It's Coded In Our Movie-going Dna.

I'll Tell You, I Think That The Internet Has Provided An Enormous Boost To Film Criticism By Giving People An Opportunity To Self Publish Or To Find Sites That Are Friendly.

It Is Not Enough For A Movie To Be Righteous. It Must Also Be Watchable.

We Are Put On This Planet Only Once, And To Limit Ourselves To The Familiar Is A Crime Against Our Minds.

All I Know Is, It Is Better To Be The Whale Than The Squid.

We Spend Too Much Time Hiding Illness.

That's What Fantasies Are For, To Help Us Imagine That Things Are Better Than They Are.

If Hollywood Stars Speak Out, So Do All Sorts Of Other People. Now Hollywood Stars Can Get A Better Hearing.

'abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' Is Without A Doubt The Best Film We Are Ever Likely To See On The Subject - Unless There Is A Sequel, Which Is Unlikely, Because At The End, The Lincolns Are On Their Way To The Theater.

Sometimes You Only Need To Have A Few Words With A Person To Know You Would Like To Have Many More.

An Actress Should Never, Ever, Be Asked To Run Beside A Van In Red Disco Boots For More Than About Half A Block, And Then Only If Her Child Is Being Kidnapped.

To Make Others Less Happy Is A Crime. To Make Ourselves Unhappy Is Where All Crime Starts.

People Read The Papers Not In The Hopes Of Learning Something New, But In The Expectation Of Being Told What They Already Know. This Is A Form Of Living Death. Its Apotheosis Is The Daily Poll In Usa Today, Which Informs Us What Percentage Of A Small Number Of Unscientifically Selected People Called A Toll Number To Vote On Questions That Cannot Possibly Be Responded To With A Yes Or No.

Learning Something New

Grave Of The Fireflies Is An Emotional Experience So Powerful That It Forces A Rethinking Of Animation... It Belongs On Any List Of The Greatest War Films Ever Made.

Dr. Leonard Shlain, Chairman Of Laparoscopic Surgery At California Pacific Medical Center, Said They Took Some Four And Five Year-olds And Gave Them Video Games And Asked Them To Figure Out How To Play Them Without Instructions. Then They Watched Their Brain Activity With Real-time Monitors. At First, When They Were Figuring Out The Games, He Said, The Whole Brain Lit Up. But By The Time They Knew How To Play The Games, The Brain Went Dark, Except For One Little Point.

I Was Perfectly Content Before I Was Born, And I Think Of Death As The Same State.

People Send Me E-mails Saying, "you're A Movie Critic. You Don't Know Anything About Politics." Well, You Know What, I'm 60 Years Old, And I've Been Interested In Politics Since I Was On My Daddy's Knee. During The 1948 Election, We Were Praying For Truman. I Know A Lot About Politics.

It's Strange: We Leave The Movie Having Enjoyed Its Conclusion So Much That We Almost Forgot Our Earlier Reservations. But They Were There, And They Were Real.

Blockbusters Run The Mainstream Industry. We May Never Again Have A Decade Like The 1970s, When Directors Were Able To Find Such Freedom.

Crowds Can Be Frightening. They Have A Way Of Impressing The Low, Base Taste Upon Their Members. Watching The Way Thousands Of People In His Audience Could Not Think For Themselves, Could Not Find The Courage To Allow Their Ordinary Feelings Of Decency And Taste To Prevail, I Understood Better How Demagogues Are Possible.

Going To A Movie So You Won't Be Offended Is Like Eating Potato Chips Made With Olestra; You Avoid The Dangers Of The Real Thing, But Your Insides Fill Up With Synthetic Runny Stuff.

They're Not Trying To Prevent Hollywood From Making Movies. They're Asking That The Most Powerful Image-building Machinery In The World Stop Grinding Out Killer Dykes And Twisted Homo Sex Fiends As If Sexual Orientation Had Anything To Do With Criminal Behavior.

Absolutists Frighten Me. During All The Endless Discussions On My Blog About Evolution, Intelligent Design, God, And The Afterworld, Numbering Altogether Thousands Of Comments, I Have Never Named My Beliefs, Although Readers Have Freely Informed Me That I Am An Atheist, And Agnostic, Or At The Very Least A Secular Humanist - Which I Am.

The Muse Visits During The Process Of Creation, Not Before.

To Call It An Anticlimax Would Be An Insult Not Only To Climaxes But To Prefixes. It's A Crummy Secret, About One Step Up The Ladder Of Narrative Originality From It Was All A Dream. It's So Witless, In Fact, That When We Do Discover The Secret, We Want To Rewind The Film So We Don't Know The Secret Anymore. And Then Keep On Rewinding, And Rewinding, Until We're Back At The Beginning, And Can Get Up From Our Seats And Walk Backward Out Of The Theater And Go Down The Up Escalator And Watch The Money Spring From The Cash Register Into Our Pockets.

Nobody Looks Perfect. We Have To Find Peace With The Way We Look And Get On With Life.

Because We Can Engineer Genetics, Because We Can Telecast Real Lives-of Course We Must, Right? But Are These Good Things To Do? The Irony Is, The People Who Will Finally Answer That Question Will Be The Very Ones Produced By The Process.

Film Has Become A Marketed Commodity, And The Opportunities And Audiences For Art Cinema Have Grown Smaller. There Is A General Downturn In Cultural Literacy, Perhaps Because Of Television.

While I Am Usually In Despair When A Movie Abandons Its Plot For A Third Act Given Over Entirely To Action, I Have No Problem With The Way Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets Ends, Because It Has Been Pointing Toward This Ending, Hinting About It, Preparing Us For It, All The Way Through. What A Glorious Movie.

We Think Of First Love As Sweet And Valuable, A Blessed If Hazardous Condition.

I've Been Told That I Am Evil. I've Been Told That I Am Behind The Persecution Of Millions Of Americans. That I Have Encouraged Hate Toward Gays. I've Received Both Very Brief And Obscene Messages, And Very Long And Literate Messages That Tell Me A Vote For Crash Was Vote For Homophobia.

We Laugh, That We May Not Cry.

Someone Once Said The Fundamental Reason We Get Married Is Because Have A Universal Human Need For A Witness.

Film Theory Has Nothing To Do With Film. Students Presumably Hope To Find Out Something About Film, And All They Will Find Out Is An Occult And Arcane Language Designed Only For The Purpose Of Excluding Those Who Have Not Mastered It And Giving Academic Rewards To Those Who Have. No One With Any Literacy, Taste Or Intelligence Would Want To Teach These Courses, So The Bona Fide Definition Of People Teaching Them Are People Who Are Incapable Of Teaching Anything Else.

What's Sad About Not Eating Is The Experience, Whether At A Family Reunion Or At Midnight By Yourself In A Greasy Spoon Under The L Tracks. The Loss Of Dining, Not The Loss Of Food.

Many People Believe The Names Of In 'n Out And Steak 'n Shake Perfectly Describe The Contrast In Bedroom Techniques Between The Coast And The Heartland.

Friends Don't Let Jackasses Drink And Drive.

Drink And Drive

There Are Often Lists Of The Great Living Male Movie Stars. How Often Do You See The Name Of Nicolas Cage? He Should Always Be Up There. He's Daring And Fearless In His Choice Of Roles, And Unafraid To Crawl Out On A Limb, Saw It Off And Remain Suspended In Air.

Some Of These People Make My Skin Crawl.

We Can Now Have Action Movies With Two Stars Where One Might Be African American And One Might Be Asian American. One Of Them Doesn't Have To Be White, And The Other One Doesn't Have To Be The Ethnic Sidekick. We're Way Over That. And I Think It's Happening In Society, Too.

The Layout Was Griping, The Glide Is Awesome. Two Ten-inch Fins Up, Way Up.

Dogs Notice, They Share, They Draw Conclusions, They Like It When They're Able To Be Of Service And Are Touchingly Grateful When They're Praised.

Fellini Was More In Love With Breasts Than Russ Meyer, More Wracked With Guilt Than Ingmar Bergman, More Of A Flamboyant Showman Than Busby Berkeley... Amarcord Seems Almost To Flow From The Camera, As Anecdotes Will Flow From One Who Has Told Them Often And Knows They Work. This Was The Last Of His Films Made For No Better Reason Than Fellini Wanted To Make It.

A Film Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.

Aren't You Getting Tired Of People Hating One Another? What Do They Think They Get Out Of It?

I Was Instructed Long Ago By A Wise Editor, "if You Understand Something You Can Explain It So That Almost Anyone Can Understand It. If You Don't, You Won't Be Able To Understand Your Own Explanation." That Is Why 90% Of Academic Film Theory Is Bullshit. Jargon Is The Last Refuge Of The Scoundrel.

Anyone Who Reads Advice Books About Romance Has One Problem To Begin With: Bad Taste In Literature.

I Felt It Would To Add A Great Deal To My Legend For Eccentricity.

As I Swim Through The Summer Tide Of Vulgarity, I Find That's What I'm Looking For: Movies That At Least Feel Affection For Their Characters. Raunchy Is Ok. Cruel Is Not.

Valentines Day Is Being Marketed As A Date Movie. I Think Its More Of A First-date Movie. If Your Date Likes It, Do Not Date That Person Again. And If You Like It, There May Not Be A Second Date.

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It's The Worst Kind Of Bad Film: The Kind That Gets You All Worked Up And Then Lets You Down, Instead Of Just Being Lousy From The First Shot.

Occasionally An Unsuspecting Innocent Will Stumble Into A Movie Like This And Send Me An Anguished Postcard, Asking How I Could Possibly Give A Favorable Review To Such Trash. My Stock Response Is Ebert's Law, Which Reads: A Movie Is Not About What It Is About. It Is About How It Is About It.

It Is More Erotic To Wonder If You're About To Be Kissed Than It Is To Be Kissed.

Beguiled By George S. Bush's Easy Smile And Casual Indifference To The Details, We Are On The Brink Of Electing Him To Office. This Isn't Choosing A President, It's Casting The Lead In A Sitcom About The Presidency.

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To Make Others Less Happy Is A Crime. To Make Ourselves Unhappy Is Where All Crime Starts. We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World. That Is True No Matter What Our Problems, Our Health, Our Circumstances. We Must Try. I Didn't Always Know This And Am Happy I Lived Long Enough To Find It Out.

It's Like The High School Production Of Something You Saw At Steppenwolf, With The Most Gifted Students In Drama Class Playing The John Malkovich And Joan Allen Roles.

'marley' Does What Is Probably The Best Possible Job Of Documenting An Important Life.

I Do Not Fear Death. I Know It Is Coming, And I Do Not Fear It, Because I Believe There Is Nothing On The Other Side Of Death To Fear.

What You See Is So Much Less Than What You Get.

We Are Born Into A Box Of Time And Space. We Use Words And Communication To Break Out Of It And To Reach Out To Others.

Not Everyone Needs To Be Slammed Into A Category And Locked There.

When We Go To The Movies, We Identify With The Characters We See. That's Why We Go To The Movies; We Have A Voyeuristic Experience; We Have An Out Of The Body Experience. The Screen Is More Real Than Our Thoughts Are At The Moment We Are Looking At The Film And We Place Ourselves In The Place Of The People On The Screen, And When They Behave Nobly, It Makes Us Feel Noble, When They Are Sad And When They Have Lost Love, We Feel Sad; We Can Identify With That.

Dear Bill (o'reilly)...i Am Concerned That You Have Been Losing Touch With Reality Recently. Did You Really Say You Are More Powerful Than Any Politician? That Reminds Me Of The Famous Story About Squeaky The Chicago Mouse. It Seems That Squeaky Was Floating On His Back Along The Chicago River One Day. Approaching The Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge, He Called Out: Raise The Bridge! I Have An Erection!

Why Is It That English, Drama And Music Teachers Are Most Often Recalled As Our Mentors And Inspirations? Maybe Because Artists Are Rarely Members Of The Popular Crowd.

It Has Been Said That The Reason We Establish Relationships Is To Assure Ourselves Of A Witness To Our Lives.

Some Movies Run Off The Rails. This One Is Like The Train Crash In The Fugitive. I Watched It In Mounting Gloom, Realizing I Was Witnessing Something Historic, A Film That For Decades To Come Will Be The Punch Line Of Jokes About Bad Movies.

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World.

Who Was The Real Hitchcock? I Interviewed Him Once And Haven't A Clue.

It Is Reckless To Make Broad Generalizations About Any Group Of People.

From A Dramatic Viewpoint, There Are Few Professions That Grant Their Members Entry Into Other Lives, High Among Them Cops, Doctors, Clergymen, Journalists And Prostitutes. Perhaps That Explains Why They Figure In So Much Television And Cinema. Their Lives Are Lived In The Midst Of Human Drama.

Here's How Much I Know About Hockey. Mike Royko And I Were In A Tiny Bar One Winter Night, And The Radio Kept Reporting Goals By The Blackhawks. I Mentioned How Frequently The Team Was Scoring. 'you're Listening To The Highlights,' Royko Observed.

Improvisation Is A Weird Word Because We Often Think It Means That You Make Things Up Out Of Whole Cloth Right There On The Spot, And That's Rarely The Case In Acting. You Have To Know Who The Character Is, What The Situation Is And What Is Needed.

Teenagers Used To Go To The Movies To See Adults Having Sex. Today Adults Go To The Movies To See Teenagers Having Sex.

The Right Really Wants To Punish You For Having An Opinion. And I Think Both The Left And The Right Should Celebrate People Who Have Different Opinions, And Disagree With Them, And Argue With Them, And Differ With Them, But Don't Just Try To Shut Them Up.

When I Write, I Fall Into The Zone Many Writers, Painters, Musicians, Athletes, And Craftsmen Of All Sorts Seem To Share: In Doing Something I Enjoy And Am Expert At, Deliberate Thought Falls Aside And It Is All Just There. I Think Of The Next Word No More Than The Composer Thinks Of The Next Note.

If There Is Such A Thing As A Lock On An Oscar Nomination, ... Hoffman Has One.

A Remarkable Documentary That's Also One Of The Most Beautiful Nature Films I've Seen.

If You Have To Ask What It Symbolizes, It Didn't.

In These Days Of High-tech Video Games, It's Remarkable That Kids Once Got Incredibly Thrilled While Pushing Little Metal Racing Cars Around A Cardboard Track: The Toy Car Was Yours, And You Invested It With Importance And Enhanced It With Fantasy And Pitied It Because It Was Small, Like You Were. Such Games Were Weapons Against The Ennui Of Endless Saturdays.

You Can Have A Movie With Hardly Any Cuts, Or Very Few Cuts, That Is Fascinating, You Can't Take Your Eyes Away From It... Look At Some Of The Long Takes In Citizen Kane.

All I Require Of A Religion Is That It Be Tolerant Of Those Who Do Not Agree With It.

(guy) Pearce, As The Hero, Makes The Mistake Of Trying To Give A Good And Realistic Performance. (jeremy) Irons At Least Knows What Kind Of Movie He's In, And Hams It Up Accordingly.

No Good Movie Is Too Long And No Bad Movie Is Short Enough.

Now I See That All Relationships Are Virtual, Even Those That Take Place In Person. Whether We Use Our Bodies Or A Keyboard, It All Comes Down To Two Minds Crying Out From Their Solitude.

The Purpose Of Civilization And Growth Is To Be Able To Reach Out And Empathize With Other People... For Me, The Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy.

It's Funny That There Was So Much Disturbance About Having A Catholic In The White House With Kennedy, And When We Finally Get A Religion In The White House That's Causing A Lot Of Conflicts, And Concerns, And Disturbances For A Lot Of People, It's In The Bush Administration.

3-d Is A Waste Of A Perfectly Good Dimension. Hollywood's Current Crazy Stampede Toward It Is Suicidal. It Adds Nothing Essential To The Moviegoing Experience. For Some, It Is An Annoying Distraction. For Others, It Creates Nausea And Headaches.

Families And Their Problems Go On And On, And They Aren't Solved, They're Dealt With.

The Movie "ed Wood," About The Worst Director Of All Time, Was Made To Prepare Us For "stargate."

All But A Very Few Of Us Are In Debt. We Exist As Entities Who Borrow Money And Spend The Rest Of Our Lives Making Interest Payments On A Debt Tally That Never Seems To Budge. Whatever Wealth We Have, In Labor, Property Or Cash, Is Suctioned To The Top.

Life Always Has An Unhappy Ending, But You Can Have A Lot Of Fun Along The Way, And Everything Doesn't Have To Be Dripping In Deep Significance.

I Began To Realize That I Had Tended To Avoid Some People Because Of My Instant Conclusions About Who They Were And What They Would Have To Say. I Discovered That Everyone, Speaking Honestly And Openly, Had Important Things To Tell Me.

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World. That Is True No Matter What Our Problems, Our Health, Our Circumstances. We Must Try.

I Believe That Young People Wearing Hoods, Unless They Are Very Young, Can Be Frightening. What Are They Hiding? Why Don't They Want To Come Out Into The Light With The Rest Of Us? They May Be Perfectly Nice, But The Hoods Send An Uncertain Statement.

When A Girl Says She Likes You As A Friend, What She Means Is: "rather Than Have Sex With You, I Would Prefer To Lose You As A Friend."

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World... I Didn't Always Know This And Am Happy I Lived Long Enough To Find It Out.

I Know Aliens From Other Worlds Are Required To Arrive In New Mexico, But Why Stay There?

You Can't Just Tell Actors, Especially Young Ones, To 'act Happy' And Expect Them To Do It. They Must In Some Essential Way Be Happy.

When I Go To A Great Movie, I Can Live Somebody Else's Life A Little Bit For A While. I Can Walk In Somebody Else's Shoes. I Can See What It Feels Like To Be A Member Of A Different Gender, A Different Race, A Different Economic Class, To Live In A Different Time, To Have A Different Belief.

There Must Be A Better Reason To Have A Baby Than To Provide A Plot Point In A Rom-com. Don't You Think?

We Don't Have A Lot Of Class-conscious Filmmaking.

Doing Research On The Web Is Like Using A Library Assembled Piecemeal By Pack Rats And Vandalized Nightly.

Library Research

You Slide Down In Your Seat And Make Yourself Comfortable. On The Screen In Front Of You, The Movie Image Appears—enormous And Overwhelming. If The Movie Is A Good One, You Allow Yourself To Be Absorbed In Its Fantasy, And Its Dreams Become Part Of Your Memories

On This Ancient And Miraculous World, Where Such Beautiful Natural And Living Things Have Evolved, Something Has Gone Wrong When Life Itself Is Used As A Manufacturing Process.

I Had A Hard Time Watching "wolf Creek." It Is A Film With One Clear Purpose: To Establish The Commercial Credentials Of Its Director By Showing His Skill At Depicting The Brutal Tracking, Torture And Mutilation Of Screaming Young Women. When The Killer Severs The Spine Of One Of His Victims And Calls Her "a Head On A Stick," I Wanted To Walk Out Of The Theater And Keep On Walking.

There Are No Guarantees. But There Is Also Nothing To Fear. We Come From Oblivion When We Are Born. We Return To Oblivion When We Die. The Astonishing Thing Is This Period Of In-between.

If There's Anything I Hate More Than A Stupid Action Comedy, It's An Incompetent Stupid Action Comedy. It's Not So Bad It's Good. It's So Bad It's Nothing Else But Bad.

Resentment Is Just A Way Of Letting Someone Else Use Your Mind Rent-free.

I Begin To Feel Like I Was In The Last Generation Of Americans Who Took A Civics Class. I Begin To Feel Like Most Americans Don't Understand The First Amendment, Don't Understand The Idea Of Freedom Of Speech, And Don't Understand That It's The Responsibility Of The Citizen To Speak Out.

The Movie Cheerfully Offends All Civilized Notions Of Taste, Decorum, Manners And Hygiene... The Movie Is Vulgar? Vulgarity Is When We Don't Laugh. When We Laugh, It's Merely Human Nature.

I Just Assume I'm Right. Partially Out Of Conviction And Partially As A Pose.

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

I Know As A Critic I'm Required To Have A Well-armored Heart. I Must Be A Cynical Wise Guy To Show My Great Sophistication. No Pushover, Me.

Films To The Degree That They Glorify Mindlessness And Short Attention Span They Are Bad, To The Degree That They Encourage Empathy With People Not Like Ourselves And Encourage Us To Think About Life, They Are Good.

It Is Strange How The Romances Of The Teenage Years Retain A Poignancy All Through Life - How A Girl Who Turns You Down When You're 16 Retains An Aura In Your Memory Even Long After You, And She, Have Ceased To Be Who You Were Then. I Attended My High School Reunion A Couple Of Weeks Ago And Discovered, In The Souvenir Booklet Assembled By The Reunion Committee, That One Of The Girls In My Class Had A Crush On Me All Those Years Ago. I Would Have Given A Great Deal To Have Had That Information At The Time.

Pixar Is The First Studio That Is A Movie Star.

I'd Rather Be Called A N*gger Than A Slave.

Rollerball Is An Incoherent Mess, A Jumble Of Footage In Search Of Plot, Meaning, Rhythm And Sense. There Are Bright Colors And Quick Movement On The Screen, Which We Can Watch As A Visual Pattern That, In Entertainment Value, Falls Somewhere Between A Kaleidoscope And A Lava Lamp.

One Difference Between Film Noir And More Straightforward Crime Pictures Is That Noir Is More Open To Human Flaws And Likes To Embed Them In Twisty Plot Lines.

To Say That George Lucas Cannot Write A Love Scene Is An Understatement; Greeting Cards Have Expressed More Passion.

Clouds Do Not Really Look Like Camels Or Sailing Ships Or Castles In The Sky. They Are Simply A Natural Process At Work. So Too, Perhaps, Are Our Lives.

Open-heart Surgery Is Now Part Of A Typical Life Experience For Many People. Folks Talk Casually About 'having A Stent Put In,' As If They Had Their Tires Rotated.

People Never Think Of Themselves As Choosing To Be Politically Correct. They Simply Think In The Way That They Do.

This Sucks On So Many Levels." Dialogue From "jason X" Rare For A Movie To So Frankly Describe Itself. "jason X" Sucks On The Levels Of Storytelling, Character Development, Suspense, Special Effects, Originality, Punctuation, Neatness And Aptness Of Thought.

It Is Hard Enough To Be Good At All, But To Be Good In Comedy Speaks For Your Character.

What A Terrible Thing It Would Be To Be The Pope! What Unthinkable Responsibilities To Fall On Your Shoulders At An Advanced Age! No Privacy. No Seclusion. No Sin.

Jane Austen Wrote Six Of The Most Beloved Novels In The English Language, We Are Informed At The End Of Becoming Jane, And So She Did. The Key Word Is Beloved. Her Admirers Do Not Analyze Her Books So Much As They Just Plain Love Them To Pieces.

I Am Utterly Bored By Celebrity Interviews. Most Celebrities Are Devoid Of Interest.

Ridley Scott's 'prometheus' Is A Magnificent Science-fiction Film, All The More Intriguing Because It Raises Questions About The Origin Of Human Life And Doesn't Have The Answers.

Raises Questions

A Truly Strong Woman Will Choose A Stong Man Who Disagrees With Her Over A Weak One Who Goes Along.

One Of The Most Sublime And Hazardous Moments In Human Experience Comes When Two People Lock Eyes And Realize That They Are Sexually Attracted To One Another. They May Not Act On The Knowledge.they May File It Away For Future Reference. They May Deny It. They May Never See Each Other Again. But The Moment Has Happened, And For An Instant All Other Considerations Are Insignificant.

I Was Born Inside The Movie Of My Life. The Visuals Were Before Me, The Audio Surrounded Me, The Plot Unfolded Inevitably But Not Necessarily. I Don't Remember How I Got Into The Movie, But It Continues To Entertain Me.

We All Are Born With A Certain Package. We Are Who We Are: Where We Were Born, Who We Were Born As, How We Were Raised. We're Kind Of Stuck Inside That Person, And The Purpose Of Civilization And Growth Is To Be Able To Reach Out And Empathize A Little Bit With Other People. And For Me, The Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy. It Lets You Understand A Little Bit More About Different Hopes, Aspirations, Dreams And Fears. It Helps Us To Identify With The People Who Are Sharing This Journey With Us.

Because Of The Rush Of Human Knowledge, Because Of The Digital Revolution, I Have A Voice, And I Do Not Need To Scream.

Digital Revolution

When I Had Been A Film Critic For Ten Minutes, I Treated Doris Day As A Target For Cheap Shots. I Have Learned Enough To Say Today That The Woman Was Remarkably Gifted.

I Will One Day Be Thin, But Vincent Gallo Will Always Be The Director Of The Brown Bunny.

If You Pay Attention To The Movies They Will Tell You What People Desire And Fear. Movies Are Hardly Ever About What They Seem To Be About. Look At A Movie That A Lot Of People Love, And You Will Find Something Profound, No Matter How Silly The Film May Be.

I Am Informed That 5,000 Cockroaches Were Used In The Filming Of Joe's Apartment. That Depresses Me, But Not As Much As The News That None Of Them Were Harmed During The Production.

An Honest Bookstore Would Post The Following Sign Above Its 'self-help' Section: 'for True Self-help, Please Visit Our Philosophy, Literature, History And Science Sections, Find Yourself A Good Book, Read It, And Think About It.

I Was Indeed A Snob, If You Agree With This Definition: 'a Person Who Believes That Their Tastes In A Particular Area Are Superior To Those Of Other People.' I Do Believe That. Not Superior To All Other People, But To Some, Most Probably Including Those Who Think Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen Is A Great Film. That Is Not Simply Ego On My Part. It Is A Faith That After Writing And Teaching About Films For More Than 40 Years, My Tastes Are More Evolved Than Those Of A Fanboy.

Nothing Could Be More Boring Than An Absolutely Accurate Movie About The Law.

In The World Of Bad Movies, 'death To Smoochy' Is A Towering Achievement.

My Motto: 'no Good Movie Is Depressing. All Bad Movies Are Depressing.'

Because We Are Human, Because We Are Bound By Gravity And The Limitations Of Our Bodies, Because We Live In A World Where The News Is Often Bad And The Prospects Disturbing, There Is A Need For Another World Somewhere, A World Where Fred Astaire And Ginger Rogers Live.

My Books Are A Subject Of Much Discussion. They Pour From Shelves Onto Tables, Chairs And The Floor, And Chaz Observes That I Haven't Read Many Of Them And I Never Will. You Just Never Know. One Day I May - Need Is The Word I Use - To Read Finnegans Wake, The Icelandic Sagas, Churchill's History Of The Second World War, The Complete Tintin In French, 47 Novels By Simenon, And By Love Possessed.

The Screenplay Is So Well-written In A Scruffy, Fanzine Way That You Want To Rub Noses In It - The Noses Of Those Zombie Writers Who Take 'screenwriting' Classes That Teach Them The Formulas For 'hit Films.'

What Every Human Being Should Do Is Eat A Vegetarian Diet Based On Whole Foods. Period.

Vegetarian Diet

Vincent Gallo Has Put A Curse On My Colon And A Hex On My Prostate. He Called Me A 'fat Pig' In The New York Post And Told The New York Observer I Have 'the Physique Of A Slave-trader.' He Is Angry At Me Because I Said His 'the Brown Bunny' Was The Worst Movie In The History Of The Cannes Film Festival... It Is True That I Am Fat, But One Day I Will Be Thin, And He Will Still Be The Director Of 'the Brown Bunny.'

Cannes Film Festival

I Have No Fear Of Death. We All Die. I Consider My Remaining Days To Be Like Money In The Bank. When It Is All Gone, I Will Be Repossessed.

If You Can Act As If Something Is True, In A Sense That Makes It True.

Battlefield Earth Is Like Taking A Bus Trip With Someone Who Has Needed A Bath For A Long Time. It's Not Merely Bad; It's Unpleasant In A Hostile Way.

We Live In A Box Of Space And Time. Movies Are Windows In Its Walls. They Allow Us To Enter Other Minds, Not Simply In The Sense Of Identifying With The Characters, Although That Is An Important Part Of It, But By Seeing The World As Another Person Sees It.

Dice Rules Is One Of The Most Appalling Movies I Have Ever Seen. It Could Not Be More Damaging To The Career Of Andrew Dice Clay If It Had Been Made As A Documentary By Someone Who Hated Him. The Fact That Clay Apparently Thinks This Movie Is Worth Seeing Is Revealing And Sad, Indicating That He Not Only Lacks A Sense Of Humor, But Also Ordinary Human Decency.

When I Am Writing My Problems Become Invisible And I Am The Same Person I Always Was. All Is Well. I Am As I Should Be.

I'm Told We Movie Critics Praise Movies That Are Long And Boring.

Low Self Esteem Involves Imagining The Worst That Other People Can Think About You.

Kindness’ Covers All Of My Political Beliefs.

Matthew Mcconaughey And Kate Hudson Star. I Neglected To Mention That, Maybe Because I Was Trying To Place Them In This Review's Version Of The Witness Protection Program. If I Were Taken Off The Movie Beat And Assigned To Cover The Interior Design Of Bowling Alleys, I Would Have Some Idea Of How They Must Have Felt As They Made This Film.

I Think That Probably The - I Don't Give Quotes To Studios. They Have To Get Those Out Of The Paper Or From Television. So They Wouldn't Have Had My Quote Opening Day.

I Stopped Taking Notes On My Palm Pilot And Started Playing The Little Chess Game.

Going To See Godzilla At The Palais Of The Cannes Film Festival Is Like Attending A Satanic Ritual In St. Peter's Basilica.

Cannes Film Festival

How Quickly Do We Grow Accustomed To Wonders. I Am Reminded Of The Isaac Asimov Story Nightfall, About The Planet Where The Stars Were Visible Only Once In A Thousand Years. So Awesome Was The Sight That It Drove Men Mad. We Who Can See The Stars Every Night Glance Up Casually At The Cosmos And Then Quickly Down Again, Searching For A Dairy Queen.

To Know Me Is To Love Me. This Cliche Is Popular For A Reason, Because Most Of Us, I Imagine, Believe Deep In Our Hearts That If Anyone Truly Got To Know Us, They'd Truly Get To Love Us - Or At Least Know Why We're The Way We Are. The Problem In Life, Maybe The Central Problem, Is That So Few People Ever Seem To Have Sufficient Curiosity To Do The Job On Us That We Know We Deserve.

Marlon Brando Is The Most Influential Movie Actor Of The Century.

We Are The Playthings Of The Gods.

Political Correctness Is The Fascism Of The 90's, It Is This Rigid Feeling That You Have To Keep Your Ideas And Your Way Of Looking At Things Within Very Narrow Boundaries Or Else You'll Offend Someone. Certainly One Of The Purposes Of Journalism Is To Challenge Just That Way Of Thinking, And Certainly One Of The Purposes Of Criticism Is To Break Boundaries, That's Also One Of The Purposes Of Art.

Every Great Film Should Seem New Every Time You See It.

The Time In Between My Clapping Is Ma. If You Just Have Non-stop Action With No Breathing Space At All, It's Just Busyness, But If You Take A Moment, Then The Tension Building In The Film Can Grow Into A Wider Dimension. If You Just Have Constant Tension At 80 Degrees All The Time You Just Get Numb.

Breathing Space

The Last Airbender Is An Agonizing Experience In Every Category I Can Think Of And Others Still Waiting To Be Invented. The Laws Of Chance Suggest That Something Should Have Gone Right. Not Here. It Puts A Nail In The Coffin Of Low-rent 3d, But It Will Need A Lot More Coffins Than That.

Life's Missed Opportunities, At The End, May Seem More Poignant To Us Than Those We Embraced — Because In Our Imagination They Have A Perfection That Reality Can Never Rival.

I Know It Is Coming, And I Do Not Fear It, Because I Believe There Is Nothing On The Other Side Of Death To Fear. I Hope To Be Spared As Much Pain As Possible On The Approach Path. I Was Perfectly Content Before I Was Born, And I Think Of Death As The Same State.

It Is Human Nature To Look Away From Illness. We Don't Enjoy A Reminder Of Our Own Fragile Mortality.

If You Plan To Miss This Movie, Better Miss It Quickly; I Doubt If It'll Be Around To Miss For Long.

Yes, I Was Fat, But I Dealt With It By Simply Never Thinking About It. It Is Useful, When You Are Fat, To Have A Lot Of Other Things To Think About.

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